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Ways to Keep Your Website Secure and Keep Hackers Out
It is an awesome age for web development, and with new trends and functionalities arising every day, it can be quite exciting. However, with new technologies, there is always someone trying to hack into your website's security.
As new tactics are being used, you need to make sure you are covering your bases to minimize the chance of a hacked website. These aspects should be covered from the web design request for proposal, but if you already have a website, make sure to implement these measures.
Although these are basic website security practices, a refresher doesn’t hurt in an ever-changing online world.
To help save you time from a hacked website, here are 5 tips on how to secure a website.
Keep Your CMS Updated
Making sure your content management system is always running the latest version is critical to your website security. The world wide web is never static; with that comes new ways for hackers to find vulnerabilities within content management systems.
It is not to say that all content management systems are open to being hacked, but it’s the nature of software.
Keeping your CMS up-to-date is a “must” for any website owner, whether you use WordPress, Joomla, Drupal, or any other content management system on the market today.
Need help with this? Contact us today (we were recently named one of the Best Web Design Agencies in Phoenix)
Strong Passwords
Remembering strong passwords can be a pain, but having your website hacked by a weak password is even more of a pain that can require time and money to have resolved.
Whether it’s for your CMS login, or hosting provider login, use a strong password for your site security, with uppercase and lowercase letters, characters, and numbers to ensure that your password isn’t something like “Password!1”.
If you have trouble remembering your passwords, use a spreadsheet on your local computer to save your passwords.
Install an SSL
Installing an SSL certificate on your website not only secures your website security, but it also adds trust to your users and may even play a slight role in search engine optimization.
Search engines will not heavily rely on the fact that your website is secure for higher search rankings, but it is a factor that helps the trust factor, and in the world of SEO, combined efforts is where you see results, not single actions.
You can read more about SSL Certificates and why you need them here.
Choose Your Hosting Provider Wisely
Hosting companies offering incredible deals on hosting plans can be extremely tempting, especially with unlimited bandwidth and space. But the reality is that in many cases, you get what you pay for.
Choosing the right hosting company can increase the security of your website. Make sure they offer the latest versions of My SQL, PHP, CPanel, etc. as well as a real customer support person that you can talk to.
In addition, plans that offer the ability to host more than one website on a single hosting account leave all of your website properties in a vulnerable position. The reason is, if one of your websites becomes infected, it leaves all of your other websites open to infection, which can really put a dent in your website security and in your day.
For this reason, it is best to host only one website per hosting account.
Backups
This may be a no-brainer, but it is a task that many site owners may not be completing regularly. Backing up your website regularly can help relieve a lot of future headaches if your website is ever hacked or even if you made a change to it that damaged the website.
If you are constantly updating your website with new content, then more frequent backups are recommended.
The Takeaway
Well there you go, 5 ways on how to secure a website. While completing these tasks do not guarantee that your website will never be hacked, they do increase your chances tremendously of having a secure website and keeping nasty hackers out.
If you find yourself too busy running your business to have the time for these security measures, an expert marketing team can always help you with this.
